Laboratory Leadership Team

Peter Johnson

Chair of the Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department

Johnson is an internationally recognized leader in surface science and photoelectron spectroscopy,
a process in which an electron absorbs energy from light and is ejected from the material under study,
thus revealing information about its properties. Johnson has focused on materials in which electrons
are confined to two dimensions, rather than the usual three dimensions. Two-dimensional materials
include the surfaces of metals, where catalytic reactions take place; magnetic multilayers, consisting
of alternating layers of thin films of magnetic and nonmagnetic materials; and high-temperature
superconductors.

After earning a Ph.D. in physics from Warwick University in 1978, Johnson worked for Bell Laboratories,
and then joined Brookhaven Lab in 1982. He rose through the ranks to become a senior physicist in 2000,
and he became Acting Associate Chair of Brookhaven's Physics Department in 2003. Johnson was appointed
Deputy Chair of the Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department upon its founding in April
2006. In June 2007, he became Acting Chair of the department. He also leads the department's electron
spectroscopy research group.

A recipient of the American Physical Society's Oliver E. Buckley
Prize in 2011 and Brookhaven Lab's Science and Technology Award in 2001,
Johnson is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics in
the United Kingdom. He is the author of 150 peer-reviewed scientific
papers.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical,
biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security.
Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry
and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven
Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State
University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory
facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.